Fish guilt

I'm trying to decide if there's something wrong with me because I chose to stay home on Saturday to run/sew/clean instead of going fishing with Bubba.

Seeing this fact on paper is making me lean toward Yes.

I'm sure you've met those people in your life who, say, couldn't do their homework, read a book or paint their toenails if the house was a mess, the dog hadn't been walked or something in the kitchen was making a bad smell.

Well, I am one of those people.

Which means that when I have baby shower gifts to make, a house invaded by cat-sized hairballs (seriously, not exaggerating. It was alarming.), a half-marathon looming and uncut fabric folded next to a new pattern - it is virtually impossible for me to commit to a single act of leisure until everything has been crossed off the To-Do list.

I am a slave to this list. And it only exists in my own head, so it makes me seem extra crazy when no one else can even SEE the list to know how many things I need to do.

So when these other people ask me to do reasonably fun things like go fly fishing, I turn into this bug-eyed lunatic sputtering things like, "Can't go, must cut out bumblebees. Can't fish, must run six miles."

It's totally unbecoming and I know that. But there is nothing I can do about it. In fact, I've *tried* to do something about it before by just ignoring the nagging (HOLLERING) voice in my head and going ahead with whatever fun thing was presented to me, only to end up sitting at a baseball game renaming the players as things on my list.

And can't I just tell you that there is just nothing useful about "Go to the bank" turning a double play on "Change your oil " and "Make cupcakes for Kristie's birthday" .

I've lived the lesson and I've learned: When the Mental Mind List is full- stay home and do those things. THEN, and only then, go out and drink all the beers while watching the Giants lose. Or, in this case, THEN ask Bubba nicely if he'll go fishing with me soon and forgive me for being a boring lame house marm covered in bits of thread and hairball cast-off.

Thankfully Bubba is a very forgiving and, more importantly, adequately balanced human being who understands my impulses as well as my latent desire to wear my waders. Which means that he will, at once, not malign me for ditching him for the sewing machine AND plan another trip out to the river so that I can dust off my fly rod and pretend I still know how to cast.

Phew.

Meanwhile, once I got past the paralyzing guilt and awareness that I was turning into a boring houseflea, I did manage to get everything on the Mental Mind List checked THE HELL OFF.

And then I photographed the evidence of my productivity so that I could show Bubba that I didn't spend the day in vein watching skinemax and drinking gin from the bottle.

Baby shower gifts:

My new Barcelona skirt:

With a properly installed invisible zipper (see how it's even at the top? That doesn't usually happen. Like, not ever) :

Lemon meringue pie for our neighbors. They keep giving us produce and eggs from their farmshare so I thought I'd work some of it into a delicious thank you somethingerother:

And to be extra productive (thus assuaging extra guilt), I harvested from the yard and wore out the dog by running her around with me.



In retrospect it would have been more relaxing to have gone fishing. Guilt is a tiring hobby.

2 isn't enough [+ PIE]

Dudes.

For the last four years I've planted my yearly vegetable garden with two tomato plants. And then these two tomato plants have grown to gargantuan sizes and imposed their overabundance on us with unrelenting ferocity.

They taunt us, basically, and it gets out of hand.

And so, we've spent the last four years coming up with (delicious) ways to handle the burden oh what WILL we do of overly productive tomato plants so that we don't waste any so that I don't then have to throw myself headfirst off the roof.

I don't do waste.

Anyway.

I'm very proud of us now though because two tomato plants totally don't even scare us anymore. We don't even get all oh what will we do when the tomatoes start to ripen because we know exactly what we'll do. We'll consult The List (it's a mental mind list thing) and get to eating.

We have cultivated The List of Things We'll Make From The First Tomatoes over many cold tomato-less winters to the point where we know precisely the fate of every tomato that pops loose from the plants. It's very pre-meditated and we like it that way.

Some of the things from this list (because it's a mental mind list, some things might have been misplaced. It happens.) are:

Tomato sandwiches
BLTs
Canned tomatoes
The Best Tomato Sauce Ever. Yep.
Tomato Pesto Pie w/ Italian Sausage

And while we don't necessarily account for the tomatoes we'll eat freely from the plants when they're still warm from the summer sun, we expect to have those too, while also having plenty to hand out to coworkers and our nice neighbors. (Shitty neighbors get NONE.)

BUT, if this season is any gauge, two tomato plants is just not enough anymore. We've managed to mastermind the tomato season to the point where we've made all the things from The List and are ready to settle into casually tossing up a tomato salad or handing a bagful through the dutch gate except we've caught up to production.

WHAT?

That is correct. Our wintery masterplanning has resulted in an overly efficient consumption of tomatoes. Even after going on two summer vacations during which time we were convinced they'd all ripen and rot before we could enjoy them and thus be wasted *YIKES* we've managed to consume each tomato from the plants either with our own mouths or by giving them to the mouths of others leaving us with a lull between crops.

Usually I don't even notice this lull because I'm too busy sweating my life away in the kitchen canning the winter's supply of tomatoes and wondering why it doesn't even look like I made a dent in the plants, but this year I'm like hey, there's the lull, we're right in it and oh it isn't as fabulous as I'd imagined.

Anyway. The lull is here and we're waiting on about 6 orange-ish red-ish fruits to get the second wave started and I bet you're wondering why I brought you here if there aren't any tomatoes to talk about.

Well let me tell you. I brought you here to talk about the completion of The Tomato Eating List and more specifically the most recent addition to The List and then to show you pictures of this recent addition and to also declare that it's All Food in Pie Form time again at our house WOO!

So, the most recent addition to The List, after the crucial addition of crumbled Italian sausage, is Farmgirl's Savory Tomato Pesto Pie which we call The Best Tomato Pie Ever. Yep. because I'm not creative nor do I have the energy to invest in original names and once we added the Italian sausage to this otherwise quite delicious pie it became The Best in so many ways mostly because it now included meat and that is a bonus.

In order to honor this momentous occasion, I thought I'd walk you through A Day In the Life of The Best Tomato Pie Ever. Yep. so that you could see for yourself what a fucking weirdo I am and also better imagine how delicious this pie is so that you can make it for yourself.

I won't recount Farmgirl's recipe for you because, unlike every other recipe in the whole wide world, I barely fucked with it because it's perfect (except for the meatless part), so you can go over to her site which is awesome in and of itself and get the How-tos from the Farmgirl herself. If you want to make it MEATY you can add the following ingredient/step:

Ingredient: 4 Italian sausage links

Step: After making the pesto and before making the crust (OH MY HELL THE CRUST IS SO GOOD), crumble and brown the sausage in a pan. Set aside. When you go to compile the pie itself, just add crumbled sausage between the tomato and cheese layers *swoon*.

A Day In the Life of The Best Tomato Pie Ever. Yep.
Recipe by Farmgirl, see above notes for changes.

Early in the morning, or before getting lunch tacos whatever, go to a decent meat counter or butcher (We like Lunardi's for our meats) instead of the crappy grocery store and get some legit Italian sausage. Like this here:

And when you get this meat home, slice it out of its grody casing (I spared you the photographic evidence of the grodiness, don't you love me?) and crumble it in your newly unsticky pan with your $1 wooden spoon from Target like so:

Then go out to the garden and pick a bunch of tomatoes (I think I used about four or five) and a hooge bunch of basil and bring them in to slice and from which to make pesto, respectively:



Then recall briefly how it IS so worth it to make the biscuit crust (PEOPLE, THERE IS PARMESAN IN IT YUM) and then make it because it only takes a few minutes:



When you then roll it out, you can feel so proud. Plus you know it's going to be very good.


Once you have all your fillings ready, start by lining your pie pan with the larger crust (the eyefucking method works nicely when deciding which crust is larger. I find anyway.) and start by shmearing the first layer of pesto right on there with your teeny orange spatula from CB that you love. Or whatever:


Then crack into those tomato slices and layer them on top of the pesto without even feeling guilty about how many tomatoes you're using because OH it's so worth it:


Then AND THIS IS THE ONLY CHANGE I MAKE TO THE RECIPE SO WATCH OUT add a layer of your crumbly sausage yum:


Then put the cheese on there without even thinking about how much you're using. It's better than way:



Then try to shmear on some more pesto. Don't be concerned about how neat it is or if the cheese sticks to your spatula because it'll all melt together and be glorious very soon:


Then add more tomatoes because you're frivolous:


Then do the sausage again because it's there and brown and ready to go. Does that sound bad?:



Then more cheese. I doubt you need a reason to add more cheese:



Then put the other crust on top of the whole thing, thus concealing your gluttonous shame if only but for a short time. Also try not to tear it and then cut in some air holes so that your tomatoes don't suffocate:



When you take it out of the oven, it'll look something like this or maybe more brown because you're more patient than I am. Oh isn't everyone:


And then you eat:



And don't even feel ashamed for making sexy noises when you eat this pie because it is that good.

So good, in fact, that you'll totally not at all mind eating the rest of it as leftovers for the next three days. And also don't feel bad if you have leftovers that you end up freezing because I hear that it freezes beautifully. Not that I can confirm those rumors because we don't ever have any leftovers of this pie due to its awesomeness.

So now The List is complete and we're experiencing the lull between crops, but since it's supposed to warm up again this weekend, I'm hoping we'll get at least another pie out of the deal.

And then next year the plan is to double our tomato plants (we like Better Boy, but I won't judge you if you plant some fruity heirloom kind that looks like an anus) up to FOUR so that I can go back to freaking out about what will I do with all these tomatoes because that is the way I prefer to live my life, OK.

Happy Pie.

Weekend Wishes

So, a little behind the scenes look into the Mind of Finny -- I spend my weekdays imagining all the crafty fun things I can do on the weekend, or after work, or in any spare moment of my day that is not already filled with work, the gym, or any of my other pesky grown-up responsibilities.

Hubby makes fun of me for, what I like to call, my Mental Mind Lists. But this week, this is what the list looked like:

1. Check in on the seedlings:



2. + 3. Crochet up a purselet for Ms. Ava's #1 Birthday and read some more of my new fab book



4. Check in on the cauliflower and see if I can pull out the rest of the carrots in preparation for the onslaught of the summer vegs.

5. Re-plan the Saturday Adventure since Daffodil Hill fell through. There's been so much snow (probably thanks to Hubby's snow dances in the yard wearing only his helmet and an insane smile) that they've had to postpone the opening of this lovely seasonal event. Perhaps we ski more? Perhaps we wander the meadows of Yosemite? We dunno yet.

6. Gather up my Italian postcard collection to photograph and post on the blog. Wait till you see all the lovely bits my Roman friend sends me from her Euro travels -- multo buono.

7. Bake something for godssake. I haven't baked a pie, a batch of cookies, a loaf of bread or ANYTHING in so long that my oven is starting to give me the sly middle finger when I walk by to the laundry room. On the other hand, the W+D love me long time since I seem to spend all my waking hours shuffling sweaty gym clothes from one to the other. Oh to be a kid again -- when my clothes magically reappeared clean and folded in my drawers. And when I didn't think my household appliances were holding secret grudges against me for negligence.

8. Take Scooba out for a spin. I've only Scooba'd once this week, and frankly, that's just not enough. No, I would like to make Scoobaing a daily or at least thrice-weekly activity since it's just so gosh darned easy. I mean, come home to clean floors everyday? Yes, please! Scooba has a date with the bathroom today, and then a secret second date with the bedroom and hallway tomorrow. The Scooba is clearly sowing it's wild suds here and the daytime drama is enough to rival even the likes of Susan Lucci.

9. Buy some new clothes. Monday is the start of Spring, people. The much anticipated season in the FinnyKnits household, and daggummit, Finny needs a new wardrobe to usher in the new sprouts, blooms and bees. Off to Goodwill with this old yucky winter crap and in with the new springy, happy, garden friendly wear. I've already ordered, what I'm sure will be, this season;s most fantastic flipflops:



I got the orange ones, or as they call them "dandelion" Awesome, no? For reference, these are Chacos, the ideal shoe. I was married in Chacos. I spent my entire summer last year in Chacos. I wear Chacos paired inappropriately with work clothes because I love them so. If you don't have a pair, your life is missing a crucial element. Get a pair to fill the void. You, too, will love them long time. If not, you're a communist.

10. You know, I'm not sure I have a #10 in mind yet. But you know what happens when I am home for five consecutive minutes, I start to develop more things to add to my Mental Mind List.

I'll check in next week and let you know how it went. Good, crafty, productive and relaxing weekends to all.

Actually, yes, I do recall feeling relaxed.

I was a little worried that taking a vacation to go nowhere (aka my house) rather than somewhere (aka Hawaii) was going to be a bit boring and not all that relaxing and something of a bummer.

Not so!

Well, not so once I decided that a No Rules approach was better than an Apply All The Random Rules People Spout When They Hear You're Taking a Vacation at Home approach.

Man, people will make rules about any old thing, won't they?

Don't do any laundry!
Eat out at every meal just like on regular vacation!
Remember to cancel/postpone/hold all your stuff like mail and cleaning ladies!
Don't run errands!
Don't work out!
Sleep in every day!
Don't watch TV!
Visit new museums around your house!
Go to the movies in the middle of the day!

NO.

I'm proud to say that, while I was planning on abiding by a few of these rules (laundry and working out come to mind), I didn't. I think, in fact, that I DID do most of the shit on that list. Because you know what stresses me the fuck out?

Coming home from a Somewhere Else AKA Hawaii type vacation and having to do laundry, go out to dinner because we don't have any food in the house, collect mail, clean the house, run errands, work out every single moment to regain control over my waistline from a week of drinking cocktails at every meal, make up sleep, and catch up on the TiVo.

Going to museums and movies doesn't show up on my To-Do list regardless of the occasion, so those rules fell on completely deaf ears.

But don't worry, friends, it wasn't all Hey Bubb, Do We Have More Detergent? the whole time.

Oh no. We did things.

Think things like cooking, canning, beach-going, impromptu road tripping, running, going on bike rides, sewing, gardening, drinking of new cocktails, drinking of old cocktails, accepting delivery of local-raised chickens, shopping, *censored*, wine country visiting, wedding going and just plain sitting on our asses.

As you can plainly see below.

It was relaxing in the sense that I cleared my mental mind list of a lot of stuff that's been sitting around taking up space in there for a long time.

And relaxing since I did sit around a lot in the garden and stare at the birds, plants, my book and the bottom of a cocktail glass.

About those salty stories...well, I can't say that any really come to mind since I didn't kayak into a boulder, get washed ashore face first, take pictures of dead fish on a beach, or narrowly avoid being buried in a snowstorm.

I did, however, try a new cocktail and now my life is forever changed. Mostly because it gives me another way to use the garden produce and enjoy my gin in one sitting.

Welcome, Cucumber Cooler.

A friend of mine dropped this little Hendrick's booklet on my desk the other day, an act that would normally elicit very little response beyond that of throwing it in the trash since I don't deal in clutter, but something told me I should take it home and absorb its contents.

And absorb I did.

Mostly because Bubba's been plying me with a different gin cocktail every time we go to a new restaurant or bar because on a recent work trip he tried, "a gin drink with ginger beer and cucumber something in it and it was so good and I knew you'd love it but I can't remember what it was called or where I had it" (helpful, this one).

So, when we were in Anaheim for the All-Star Game, we went to Morton's and I had their "Cool as a Cucumber" drink, which was good (I swapped Hendrick's for the filthy vodka the thing called for) and since I determined that this change from plain old gin & tonic or vaguely more interesting gin & ginger ale (Gin Buck) to something more exotic was actually not a pointless activity, I set out to recreate the magic at home. Where I could also control the amount of gin going into my drink (more) and also use up some of the vegetables and herbs trying to take over our front room (cucumbers, mint).

Good call, me.

So I made one of these Cucumber Cooler things, even though it called for about a hundred more ingredients and dirtying a dozen dishes unlike my typical G&T.

And that garnish you see on top there? Yeah. That's a garden cucumber after a meaningful run-in with my melon baller. SCORE!

I haven't used that melon baller since I bought it and am only now beginning to realize it's potential. Awesome.

And the drink was awesome. And I had many. And then maybe Bubba lit the fire pit and we got so into our cocktails that we maybe had to take a bike ride to the booze store the next day so that we could relive it again that night.

And that, my friends, is a big benefit of staycationing - all the comforts of home, like your own bike, patio, fire pit, bar and booze store are, RIGHT THERE because...well, you are at home with all its comforts.

How this psycho gets ready to go back to a full time job.

In the usual Finny Is A Psycho tradition that you've come to expect, I spent my final moments before starting my new job last week killing my to do list.

Because nothing says accomplishment like cleaning the cat box.

Too bad I didn't have a second to spare before starting work because then I could have spent some much fantasized about time sitting naked atop this list.

Instead, I spent some much fantasized about time putting the spong away where I don't have to fucking see it.

What do you mean you can't see it either?

TEE DAH this only took me two hours and a hundred swears.

Yeah, I've wanted one of these tip out drawers for a hundred years and then I was nearing the moment when I was going to be out of free time forever because of the forthcoming full time farming job (YAY! I'm still so YAY over this. Obviously.) and then I was randomly reading some blogs and checked in on one of my faves and damnitall if girlfriend hadn't just put one in.

That tore it. I had to do it. IT WAS NOW OR NEVER. Otherwise I was going to have to look at that grody spong forever. And lest you think that I typoed back there, I did not. We call it a Spong. Like 'Dong' with a 'Sp'.

You get it.

And understand me.

Thanks for understanding. I like that about you guys.

Anyway, the spong and scrubber brush and drain stopper and just whatever the fuck else I decide I want to put in there have homes where I don't have to look at their grodiness.

Especially the spong though. It's the grodiest. Though I'm not sure why it grosses me out.

Moving on.

In my spree of getting shit done before starting full time work again, I did other shit, too.

Like breaking down all of our food for hiking the John Muir Trail.

Which included moving the contents of giant jars of peanut butter and Nutella into squeeze tubes yay fuck.

All I have to say about packing food for two weeks of backpacking is that it completely blows.

I even tried to cheer myself on through it by getting all super organize-y with the laptop up with my spreadsheet tracker going and putting on fun movies in the background and letting myself eat a few peanut M&Ms, but it still sucked.

All I could think about was how much I was going to hate all of this food soon. And how I'd have to carry it while hating it. And smell it while hating it. And eat it while hating it.

My fervent hope is that I at least come home hating Nutella so that it can't taunt my thighs from the store shelves anymore.

I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Anyway, yeah - I packed a lot of food up for our trip and I'm shipping half of it to our resupply guy this week and THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES to my amazing, badass, loves-to-put-messy-shit-into-squeeze-tubes sister who showed up just in time to put all the messy shit into squeeze tubes.

I was putting it off because the thought made me want to shit twice and die a thousand fiery deaths.

Can you guess what movie I was watching while I did this? If you can, we are soul mates. If not, blow me.

I did, in fact, manage to get to the bottom of that final to do list and, as my reeeeward, I fucked around in the garden for a while.

Nice reeeeward.

It's something. Not a lot. But something.

Tiny melon

Tiny lemon cucumber

And, not on my written list, but in my mental mind list FOREVER, was a trip to float in Lake Tahoe. Which I SO did even when all things were conspiring against me to just forget about it.

FORGET YOU, life's responsibilities

Instead of blood in my veins, I have the icy cold water of Lake Tahoe. Think about that, why don't you. Also, loving my hat Dig - all my friends in Tahoe want one now, too. So, like, expect orders.

I'm sure you can see why I love it here.

Then I did a bunch of other shit that had just been languishing in the back of my head being all, "You know, just get to me whenever you have a free minute, Mrs. I'm Too Busy For Everything Jerk Bitch."

Seriously, it's rude in there.

Planted my lamb's ear some buddies.

Picked a shit ton of Gravenstein apples.

Went on a death march style hike with the goofball dog who doesn't know how to use a backpack and my beloved Bubba who definitely knows how to use a backpack.

Watched Bubba pump his balls.
HAAAAAAAAAA!
This wasn't on my list, but I'm sure you understand why I had to include it anyway. Because of how you guys all understand me, remember? You remember.
Also, I said balls.
 HAAAAAA! 

Bid a tearful farewell to my hydro cucumber and eggplant crop. Love you, babies! Be good and don't get whitefly!

I hugged all of these hops.

I ate all of these peaches. Thanks, Nan!

Make crockpot plum jam.

Sampled the awesome Belgian that Bubba and I brewed.

Drank a LOT of cocktails while swinging in my recently resurrected Sky Chair.

Planted the long-coveted pineapple guava.

And probably there were other things I did, too, but who cares because that shit's over.

I'm a working woman again.

And IT'S FUCKING GREAT.

We'll chat on it.